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SRINAGAR: A fresh video has surfaced here showing Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Naveed Jutt, who escaped from police custody+ last month, with top terrorists of the Hizbul Mujahideen in a forest area of the Valley.

The video shows Jutt, carrying an automatic rifle, exchanging hugs with some Hibzul Mujahideen terrorists, although police officials refused to comment on the video saying they were verifying its veracity.

The video is believed to have been filmed somewhere in a forest area of south Kashmir, as Jutt had joined Saddam Padder in Pulwama after his escape from custody from the SMHS hospital on February 6.

Two cops, on escort duty with Jutt, were shot dead by the militant and his accomplices before he made good his escape.

Imam Tawhidi speaks to OpIndia on Islam, India, Narendra Modi, and more

When one thinks of Muslim clerics or ‘Imams’, usually an image of someone old with obscurantist ideas and moustache-less beard gets formed in our minds, thanks to the kind of clerics we usually see outraging on different issues in the media. But Imam Tawhidi is different. He is just 35 years old, sports a moustache and trimmed beard, has a clam demeanour, supports progressive ideas, and calls himself “The Imam of Peace”.

His website describes him as an Australian Muslim Scholar, Thinker, Educator, Speaker, and one of the main leading voices in the global movement of Islamic reform who has dedicated his life to ideologically tackling the spread of Islamic Extremism. He was born in the Holy City of Qum, Iran, into a spiritual family with a history of decades in the Islamic Seminary.

You don’t seem to like Pakistan. What are your views about Pakistan in general?

In my respected opinion, Pakistan is an illegitimate country founded upon hate and blood. Its constitution claims to maintain the rights of all citizens yet the government fails to recognise the rights of minorities. It has been a “terrorist haven” for many years, harbouring terrorists. It is also guilty of taking tens of billions of dollars from the West to fight terrorism, yet has made little to no efforts in fighting any extremist ideology. ​

On international platforms, Pakistan raises Kashmir issue and tries to draw parallels with the Palestine problem. You’re reported to have views on the Palestine issue that is not popular in the Muslim world, with you even referring to Palestine as ‘Jewish land’. What are your views on the Kashmir issue? Would you call Kashmir a ‘Hindu land’ for instance?.​Kashmir is Hindu land. Pakistan has no right to claim Kashmir. Kashmir belonged to India before Pakistan was “created”.

You have often talked about need for reforms and have reportedly said that Islam won’t survive without reforms. What reforms are you talking in particular? And why are they necessary?​The moderate Muslims need to unite with the rest of the world against radicals of their own faith and religion. We must drive our Wahhabi Islam from our societies, cut ties with Iran’s terrorist regime and its allies such as Hizbullah.

he first thing that we need to do is introspection. I think we, people living in J&K, and nationally, need to introspect of what is happening and why is it happening and how can we solve this. Somewhere down the line, I think not just now, but it’s been almost 30 years, that we have lost confidence in ourselves. I’m talking of the people of J&K. Somewhere, we have lost confidence of creativity.If you go back in time, innovators, creative people, the valley was full of these people, the state was full of them. Somewhere down the line, I don’t want to get into political histories, but there has been a shake up, which gets manifested in different ways. For some, it reflects in trust deficit, for some, it reflects in confidence failure. We need to talk to ourselves, before we talk to others. And this must happen, nationally as well.Our aspirations, individually are not very different from aspirations any of you have. It’s only when it comes to a societal aspiration, that there are differences. In a disconnect between what we aspire for ourselves as individuals and what we aspire for our society and community.Pick up a lad from Pulwama, where I come from and pick up a lad from Pathankot, there’s no difference. The aspirations are the same. Aspirations of a good life.And it doesn’t take very much to ensure that every boy or girl in the state gets what every other boy in the country does. Why has it become so difficult for us, to manage this? And somehow I hold not just ourselves and the country but everyone around responsible for this. Because somewhere, I don’t know why and how, or perhaps I do but this is not the occasion to get into that, we have been isolated.This brings me to my second point. Having introspected, what do we do? The second part of it is interaction between people. This is a great opportunity for that. This is the kind of forum that we need more often. We don’t even realise how significant this is….Not just in terms of you-come-and-invest. I don’t expect any of you to to invest but what this does for us, it gives us a certain confidence that there are people who are willing to listen to us, who are concerned about us, who will interact with us and we will find a way forward.nd that really is the message that we want to convey to you. Peace is not about investment. It is not about anything else. If you interact as we have done today, it sets off a series of events. In the process relationships get built. A consequence of all that will happen is an investment in perhaps any sector. You need to help us in breaking away from the isolationist paradox that we are bottled in.Honestly speaking, I am sharing this with you, we have made a story of ourselves and overtime this story has become fiction. We need to address that issue. We live in a world where somehow somewhere, a friend and a colleague of mine said this once that we started believing or we do believe that the world is a part of Kashmir. The world is not a part of Kashmir, Kashmir is a part of the world. Lets understand that.I think that’s a critical thing whereby the whole process of engagement must start. We can’t live in fiction for very long. And its in that, that we need support and help in coming out of this. Along with that, experiences, expertise then we will get into issues. We grow apples, surely we grow them we’ve been growing them hundreds of years. Can we get some knowledge of the best practices in? Yes we can. Will that have an impact? yes it will. But its not just the fact of a high density technology coming in, along with that comes in a certain people’s contact, a certain relationships.

No proposal to scrap Article 370, says govt in Parliament. It seems the plank of scrapping Aert 370 and Art 35A was a gimmick for votes. The voters in Jammu and Ladhakh have been cheated, sold out, whatever

in Parliament the BJP govt states that it has no proposal to scrap Art 370 and in J&K where it is an equal partner of the governing coalition it spends handsome sums of money to hire the nation's top lawyers to defend Art 35A an Article which negates every tenet of the Constitution and Parliament. Painfull. This is Shameless on the part of the BJP

The BJP is hand in glove with the PDP and is working against its core ideology of “integration” of J&K with the Indian union by scrapping this Article.The state government has hired four senior advocates of the Supreme Court, including Fali Nariman, a constitutional expert, to defend Article 35A in the Supreme Court. Other three lawyers are Shekhar Naphade, Rakesh Dwivedi and KV Viswanathan.Sources in the state government told The Tribune that for appearing in the first hearing to defend Article 35A in the Supreme Court, the J&K Government paid Rs 44.4 lakh to these leading lawyers. “Fali Nariman was paid Rs 21.5 lakh, followed by Rs 10.30 lakh to Dwivedi, Rs 8.10 lakh to Naphade and Rs 4.5 lakh to Viswanathan,” said the sources.“This agreement was struck in December between the J&K Government and the lawyers. The state government, during the Budget session in the Legislative Assembly, had said that the government was committed to defending the case by hiring the services of leading lawyers of the country,” the source said.

It is a decision of Mehbooba Mufti and PDP. Even if there was no BJP they would have done the same. The crucial difference is that the CG is not fighting for Art35A in SC unlike under previous Congress govts. SC has asked CG to give its opinion on Art 35A. What it is will be crucial. And Tribune is a well-known Congress media. We know how interested they were in removing Art 370 and 35A.

Major Gaurav Arya on how to solve Kashmir. While Kashmir is an Islamic problem, I don't agree with him that the solution also needs to be 100% halal Islamic. Quite a lot of Islam in his solution including some nonsensically dhimmi ideas unbecoming of an Indian army officer. Read it in full here -

Chandragupta wrote:Major Gaurav Arya on how to solve Kashmir. While Kashmir is an Islamic problem, I don't agree with him that the solution also needs to be 100% halal Islamic. Quite a lot of Islam in his solution including some nonsensically dhimmi ideas unbecoming of an Indian army officer. Read it in full here -

Chandragupta wrote:Major Gaurav Arya on how to solve Kashmir. While Kashmir is an Islamic problem, I don't agree with him that the solution also needs to be 100% halal Islamic. Quite a lot of Islam in his solution including some nonsensically dhimmi ideas unbecoming of an Indian army officer. Read it in full here -

Interesting. I thought this guy was a hardliner. Was it last year or was it recently he said after one more bloody summer in the valley, problem will be solved and valley Muslims will fall in place. Interesting that he is now singing another tune.

We all know there is one and only solution: Take on TSP. Short of that, its a question of managing the situation. No easy answers. Arm chair strategists on one end of spectrum will say make TSP pay a price, and on the other side, "reach out" or "political solution". Both border on sophistry.

You ask this latter group what reaching out and political solution mean, they won't have a coherent answer. And when you point out that India has more than reached out including umpteen elections, interlocutors, economic packages etc, its met with derision and mockery. I saw one KM on Undy declare brazenly that attacks won't stop until India acknowledges valley is disputed and TSP is a party to the dispute. So now, KM elites are openly batting for TSP and none of this 'indigenous' crap. Of course, the indigenous component is that the valley is filled with TSP colluders, but that does not mean India has to give in.

Sad that 3 of our brave hearts laid down their lives confronting these pig scum.

Modi govt doing a bad job in the SC. If they have to sacrifice the govt in J&K on this core issue they should do it. Saying something to the voters and doing something else when in govt was not expected of this govt. Both Art 370 and Art 35A need to go.

I dont know what is stopping us from outnumbering the valley population?

When bangladeshis can illegally migrate in to India and get official documents, how difficult is for non-J&K resident to settle down in J&K? The problem is with us. We are trying to be whiter than white.

Increase the population in Jammu and Ladakh. This will reduce the number of seats allocated to Kashmir.

Provide money to Hindus in Jammu to allow them to buy Kashmiris land.

Bring in Jammu & Ladakhi politicians to power. Make the valley politicians a minority.

Move the capital permanently to Jammu. I don't know why the capital has to be in Srinagar.

Make the valley similar to what Ladakh is today. Irrelevant. 370, 380, 390 whatever it is will become irrelevant.

Guys, we tried to create a video where we can highlight the next steps towards Pok post the surgical strike scenario. While the videos give a insight into the history of Pok and inaction committed by Nehru., they also give a insight into what is the next steps post the surgical strikes. I tried to bring out some pressing questions including why we have not utilized our space when it comes to open seats for Pok on the J&K assembly. Also why not claim slivers of territory on each surgical stike? Some of these realistic scenarios are outlined and discussed on this 2 part video with IDSA.

Of course as always let me know on what you guys think and feel that can bring about more on these as pertinent when it comes to all neighbors. Goal is always of course to try and highlight Modi’s achievements, but often I’ve realized that we cannot edit the answers good or bad.

Looks like I may be able to bring out more videos along the same lines when it comes to multiple neighboring countries, so if there is any interest is specific questions for upcoming videos or ideas then please let me know.

Jammu should not be separated from Kashmir valley. People from Jammu should start migrating on to exterior Kashmir and Ladakh. Then people from other part of India should be pushed in Jammu. Kashmirs will not allow, but they cannot stop people from Jammu to move around in JKL.

Federal government should invest heavily in Jammu & Ladakh region.

Kashmir should be made the minority region. The only way is to reduce the power from Kashmir politicians. For that need to increase the population in Jammu and ladakh.

Art35A revocation hearing coming up on May 14. None of the rebel judges are in the bench which is a good thing. Meanwhile govt should stop playing the shy bride and come out in the open with its stand on the issue. Saving the J&K govt is not worth it.

Two school-going children were injured, one of them critically in the head, when stone-pelters attacked their school bus carrying 50 students in Shopian on Wednesday

Of the two children who sustained injuries, 6-year-old Rehan Gorsai, a class II student, was hit in the head.

Separately, three tourists were injured in other stone-pelting attacks on tourist vehicles in south Kashmir and in Memander village, a mob lobbed a petrol bomb at the house of PDP MLA Mohammad Yousuf Bhat.

Last year chief minister Mehbooba Mufti granted amnesty to first-time stone-pelters, in her quintessential ‘healing touch’ approach to violence in Kashmir.

One killed, 4 injured in clashes with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir

One person was killed and four others were injured during clashes with security forces who were engaged in an encounter with militants in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, a police official said today.

Meanwhile, a group of youngsters assembled near the encounter site and started pelting stones at the security forces, the official said.

He said five people were injured when the security forces opened fire to chase away the stone pelters. One of the injured, 17-year-old Umar Kumhar, later succumbed to injuries, he added.

Major encounter underway..7 trapped. Turkawangan Zainpora of Shopian in South Kashmir. Terrorists include top commanders Saddam Padder and Zeenat ul Islam. Man we are killing them by dozen now happy hunting

panduranghari wrote:Muns Saar,Attaboy. Keep up the great work. Who knows people that matter will see it!

Panduranghari Garu, Thank you for your kind words. It does mean a lot when I often wonder if a lot of the effort in some small way can really make a difference. So I appreciate the comment.One thing that I felt did grind a little bit for me, in the video was that he keeps referring to India keeping in good relations with all of the international community and to keep India's status pristine.

When I think about it, why is this really such a big deal? International community on the whole really doesn't give 2 cents for what we think by the barrage of negative media reports as we've all seen.

China really doesn't give a rats *** about the international community and manages to get away with territorial disputes in pretty much every sector with every neighbor. We can recently add Russia to the list as well.For the next video I think I might tackle the China question with him.

Rampy wrote:Major encounter underway..7 trapped. Turkawangan Zainpora of Shopian in South Kashmir. Terrorists include top commanders Saddam Padder and Zeenat ul Islam. Man we are killing them by dozen now happy hunting

She is one of the top athletes of J&K, but when it comes to the question of employment she is only eligible for the job of sweeper due to the provisions of Article 35-A. Living with her parent in a one-room shanty at Valmiki Colony in Jammu, Radhika displayed the medals and trophies she had won as an athlete but all her awards are of no use because she is one of the many voiceless non-permanent resident Valmikis, who have been facing the worst kind of slavery in a democracy since 1957.Members of Valmiki Samaj have been living in Jammu since 1957 but they have been deprived of all constitutional and human rights due to the separate constitution of the state. As Valmikis are denied Permanent Resident Certificates (PRCs) which are given to residents of J&K, their youth are debarred from claiming any government job in the state. They are entitled to only the job of sweeper in J&K.“I hope that the Supreme Court will end the discrimination and slavery being faced by our community,” Radhika told The Tribune. “I excelled in physical test for recruitment into a paramilitary force but finally I was debarred from participating in the main selection as I did not possess a PRC,” she said.

and

are not isolated cases. There are several other Valimiki youth who are talented and qualified but cannot join state-funded institutions to do professional courses like MBBS and B.Tech because they don’t possess PRCs.The agony of these residents started way back in 1957 when they were especially called from Punjab to work as “safai karamcharis” after the local workers had gone on an indefinite strike. The then Wazir-e-Azam (Prime Minister) of J&K, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, had convened a Cabinet meeting in which a decision was taken to bring safai karmacharis from other states to solve the crisisOver 250 families of Valmikis were brought from Gurdaspur and Amritsar in Punjab with the promise that they would be provided all constitutional rights like other citizens of J&K. It was only on this assurance that the Valmikis had agreed to work in Jammu.

blatant discrimination with women is part of the fascist construct of Art 35A and Art 370. the govt must clearly state in the Apex court what is the position on these enactments/ statutes. in ever past election these have been emotive issues for the electorate. These provisions have to be struck off the Constitution

Jammu should not be separated from Kashmir valley. People from Jammu should start migrating on to exterior Kashmir and Ladakh. Then people from other part of India should be pushed in Jammu. Kashmirs will not allow, but they cannot stop people from Jammu to move around in JKL.

Federal government should invest heavily in Jammu & Ladakh region.

Kashmir should be made the minority region. The only way is to reduce the power from Kashmir politicians. For that need to increase the population in Jammu and ladakh.

How difficult is to make a birth certificate in Jammu.

Am i the only one who finds it ironic that the only ones who can move in are Rohingya foreign illegal migrants from thousands of kilometers away from a foreign country. The kind of uneducated backward types who would be joining in stone pelting and jihad at the drop of a hat.

Rampy wrote:Major encounter underway..7 trapped. Turkawangan Zainpora of Shopian in South Kashmir. Terrorists include top commanders Saddam Padder and Zeenat ul Islam. Man we are killing them by dozen now happy hunting

However, if they were really were trapped/surrounded/cordoned off, how is this even possible? Are the army units getting overpowered and subdued by the mobs, or are they short of basic equipment at the tactical level like night vision equipment and RPG/RPO-Schmel type weapons required to quickly finish the operation?

Rampy wrote:Major encounter underway..7 trapped. Turkawangan Zainpora of Shopian in South Kashmir. Terrorists include top commanders Saddam Padder and Zeenat ul Islam. Man we are killing them by dozen now happy hunting

In the last one month or so this was the second encounter with the same scum group. In the first encounter seven of their recruits were killed but we are already on their trail otherwise such a quick encounter could not have happened. Even in their escape (?) we got the opportunity to track their path and their support groups in the region. It gave us a massive opportunity to raze their infrastructure in that village and am sure fine combing will clear some more trash. Let them run, how far would they go? Where ever they go we will only further dismantle their support network.

Widespread violent clashes and security forces’ firing have allegedly left five civilians dead and over 20 injured on Sunday in parts of Shopian district, where five local militants were killed earlier in the day.

Five civilians, identified by the locals as Zubair Ahmad, Nissar Ahmed Kumar, Adil Ahmed Sheikh, Sajad Ahmad Rather and Asif Ahmad, were declared dead in different hospitals in Shopian and Srinagar. “All had suffered firearm injuries,” said the hospital sources.

For the last three years, Fazil Jeelani (all first names changed) has been looking to get married. The 33-year-old from Hyderpora, Srinagar, in Kashmir has all the qualifications required to take the plunge. He is well settled in life with a big house and a flourishing business. He is quite handsome too – tall and barrel-chested. But things haven’t been moving forward.

It isn’t that Jeelani is waiting to fall in love. He is okay with an arranged marriage. But every time there is a marriage proposal his mother finds a reason to reject it. “Now I’m so tired of it that I tell people I’m just the groom, my mother is the one really getting married,” he says with a grin on his face.

Back in college, Jeelani was in love with a girl. The relationship lasted six years. In all that time, he did not tell his parents about his relationship. But when the girl’s parents decided to look for a husband for her, Jeelani finally had no option but to ask his family to send a proposal to the girl’s house, as is the custom. But Jeelani’s mother rejected the idea outright without even seeing her once. The reason?

The girl her son was in love with belonged to a ‘lower caste’ and that was unacceptable to Jeelani’s mother. “I tried to reason with my mother for months but she didn’t want to listen. For her, caste was more important than anything else. What will I tell our relatives? she would say,” Jeelani said.

Jeelani submitted to his mother’s wishes and broke off the relationship. The girl was married off a year later. While Jeelani has given in to his mother’s fixation with caste, from time to time what still angers him is how she uses Islam, “a religion founded on the basis of egalitarianism to justify it.”

Caste hierarchies among Kashmiri Muslims

Contrary to the outsider’s notion that caste plays no role in Kashmir’s Muslim majority society, particularly in the Valley, the reality is quite the opposite and complex. The renowned Kashmiri sociologist and former head of Kashmir University’s sociology department, late Bashir Ahmed Dabla, in his book titled Directory of Caste in Kashmir writes:

“(T)here prevails an unrealistic notion among some individuals and groups that caste as a working social institution does not exist in this society. But that does not stand as a social reality. The actual reality is caste as a functional social institution prevails in Kashmiri society.”

Dabla adds that even if caste does not exist in any ideal Hindu varna sense in Kashmir, it is still very significant.

In his book, which is perhaps the only academic reference point for caste in Kashmir, Dabla attempts to explain the complex nature of caste in Kashmir. He has classified Kashmiri castes into three different groups. At the top are the ‘Syed castes’ – Geelani, Jeelani, Andrabi, Qadri, Hamdani, Bhukhari, Shah and others. Syeds claim to be the descendants of the family of the prophet. It is believed that Syeds came into Kashmir from Central Asia in the early 14th century and spread Islam in the region. Consequently, they have a somewhat proprietary attitude towards Islam in Kashmir.

This group is followed by the ‘occupational castes’ which include surnames like Wani, Zargar, Bhat, Naqash, Lone, Khandey, Ahangar and others. While Syed castes are a representative of the different tribes they belong to, this is not the same with occupational castes. These surnames denote only the occupations they or their ancestors had taken up. For instance, Zargar means goldsmith in Kashmiri and the bearer of this caste name would be someone who is either currently in this occupation or has descended from a family of goldsmiths.

At the bottom of Dabla’s caste hierarchy are the ‘service castes’ with names like Hanjis (people living in houseboats), Waza, Gilkar, Sofi, Dobi, Ganie, Bangi, or Sheikh. These are generally landless people, or those whose occupations are considered menial. Sheikh is an interesting caste here. If this title is used as a prefix it indicates the person has descended from Brahmin landlords like the National Conference party leader Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. If, however, Sheikh is used as a surname, this indicates belonging to the sweeper community.

Even though the existences of caste as a social institution in the society is widely denied, perhaps because it contradicts the core beliefs of Islam, it is an open secret within the community. The role of caste in Kashmiri society comes to the surface at important social functions like marriages. Syeds rarely marry people from occupational castes. And similarly, those belonging to occupational castes refrain from marrying into service castes.

Social prejudices

Caste as a social institution in Kashmir also perpetuates prejudices and stereotypes against certain communities which are subtly played out.

Rubaiya Gilkar married Aamir Wani 15 years ago. Theirs was a love marriage. They have two children – Anus 12 and Anak 10. Just like Jeelani, Aamir’s family didn’t approve of Rubiya because of her caste. The two, however, still went ahead and got married. But there were consequences to the decision the couple had made. “When he (Aamir) made the decision to marry me his parents shunned him. Our wedding ceremony took place at a friends house,” she says.

Aamir’s parents were so furious about his decision to marry Rubiya they asked him to leave the house. For the next three years, the couple lived in a rented room. After the birth of their first child, the relationship between Aamir and his family improved. They both moved back to his parents’ house but for her in-laws Rubiya was still an outsider. She would get taunted for every small mistake and it would always be about her ‘kashlat’ (caste). “Even today when there is a function (social gathering) my parents and family are never invited. It breaks my heart every time they have to face such humiliation because of me,” she says with a lump in her throat. Rubiya has accepted these humiliations as “Khudai sinz Marzi (God’s will)”, but at the same time, she is worried she has passed on her “inferiority complex” to her boys.

Surprisingly her sister-in-law, Parveena Zargar, who is a working woman, acknowledges that her family’s behaviour towards Rubiya hasn’t always been the best. But she says her family also needs to look out for its reputation in society. She says she sympathises with Rubiya’s situation but in the same breath she adds, “if your cloth is torn, only a cloth of the same colour can be used to repair it”. Parveena believes that Rubiya isn’t a victim of caste discrimination rather it’s a case of her “not being accustomed to our way of life.”

Caste as identity

Wakar Amin, assistant professor at the Department of Social Work in Kashmir University, says even after switching to Islam in the 14th century the casteist traits from its Hindu past carried on in Kashmiri society.

“Under Hindu rule, Brahmins were the ones who possessed knowledge but after Kashmir turned to Islam, Syeds took on that role. Now they have the upper hand. Syeds took important jobs in the king’s court and bureaucracy. Brahmins became redundant. The Syeds’ religion, however, clubbed them with all the other caste groups they had for centuries considered beneath them. So they retained certain traits and made them important to their identity.”

Amin argues that this need to maintain an ‘identity’ is the basis for stratification in Kashmiri society.

He believes the role of caste in Kashmiri society is often underplayed for a variety of reasons. But its influence is far-reaching – from politics to social rituals.

“Syeds had control over mosques. People would go to mosques to settle their issues so they became power centres and those who had control over the mosques acquired political authority. It hasn’t changed till this day.”

Amin believes that, over the years, access to education has led to these caste divisions waning somewhat, but caste still hasn’t completely vanished. Amin gives the example of the Sheikh community which is still ghettoised in the heart of downtown Srinagar.

“This community (Sheikh) has been the biggest victim of caste discrimination in Kashmir. Not only have they been reduced to doing the same job over the years, it has reached a point where those belonging to this community can’t even find a bride in the Valley. Sheikh or Watul is like a cuss word in Kashmiri,” he added.

Jeelani knows about this discrimination all too well. He was introduced to the idea of caste by his family long before his mother rejected the girl he was in love with. “When we were kids growing up in our ancestral village in Anantnag we would get scolded for even playing with grees shuer (children of the landless).” He hopes society will one day open its eyes and acknowledge how discriminatory it is and work to correct it.

Adnan Bhat is an independent journalist who travels between Kashmir and Delhi.